Test Plan Design: Productivity Counts!

For years I've been working with TestLink. It's actually a pretty good tool, but using it just sucks.

It's so darn slow, expecially for creating test plans. Designing test suites is an creative task, productivity is important for that and TestLink is really poor here.

Since I didn't had another tool available in the past (no budget and TestLink was the only good open-source I knew) I sticked with some workaround. I created the test plan structure in Microsoft Word  and when I was done I started I entered all that stuff into TestLink.

When I started the development of Quality Spy - my own test management tool - I wanted productivity and simplicity to be the key design drivers.

Compare the sluggish web interface of TestLink with this:

• A native typing feeling, almost as in Microsoft Word (ENTER, type, ENTER, type), with in-place-editing
• Full drag & drop support

It looks like that:

When a test suite is selected:

• ENTER creates a new test suite next to the current
• CTRL+ENTER creates a new child
• CTRL+LEFT moves the test suite "in" one level (makes it a child of the previous)
• CTRL+RIGHT move the test suite "out" one level (makes it a child of the parent's parent)
• CTRL+UP moves the test test suite up
• CTRL+DOWN moves the test suite down
• F2 toggles in-place-editing

When a test case is selected

• ENTER creates a new test case next to the current
• CTRL+UP moves the test case up
• CTRL+DOWN moves the test case down
• F2 toggles in-place-editing

The latest version can be found on sourceforge.